For the last week or so I have been  doing the Zoe app testing thing – the one where you wear a monitor for two weeks to test your blood-sugar responses to foods.   They also test how good your blood is at handling fats  (am hoping very, but am not optimistic)  and whether your microbiome is out of the top drawer (am more confident about that one: am quite sure my s#*t is the very best there is) –  and it is all very interesting.

The first thing you’ll be wanting to know is that when I eat my own recipes and stick to all things high-fibre and low-calorie-dense, my blood-sugar graph looks like this:

And when I don’t, it looks like this:

So it’s good to see that my recipes are not only totally delicious, but will probably save your life.  Am expecting a call from the Nobel gang any minute now.

I don’t see what’s unreasonable about that: Himalayan blood-sugar spikes make half the world fat or very fat – every spike represents a dollop of excess glucose being stored as fat – and repeated over time can cause diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems, arthritis, to say nothing of depression, dementia, and wrinkles.  Whether you are fat or not.  

I think a Nobel Prize is the least I can expect.

The other good news is that you can turn your blood-sugar picture from the the Alps to the Cotswolds by eating a salad or other vegetable matter before you eat a bowl of pasta – or even a piece of cake. The takeaway is, stuff your face on fibre – veg, pulses, and whole grains – and cake has a much more difficult time making you fat.  Or killing you.

A simple green or mixed salad will do the trick, or you could roast some asparagus with a little parmesan sprinkled on top, drizzle some oil and balsamic over it, and perhaps dip it in a poached egg, but here  are three rather good salads to flatten your sugar-spikes so you can have your cake and enjoy eating it.

Radicchio castelfranco salad with kumquats, red onions, pomegranate seeds, and walnuts

I am very enamoured with the pale green, pink-flecked Radicchio Castelfranco; it has something of the escarole about it, and is less bitter than other types of radicchio. It does very nicely simply drizzled with balsamic and olive oil, sprinkled with salt, and mixed well. But I absolutely love it like this. Throw in a few shavings of black truffle if you have some lying around.  If you can't lay your hands on a radicchio Castelfranco, use escarole or red radicchio, and you can use oranges if there are no kumquats available. Eat on its own, or with some burrata or creamy goats cheese.

Serves 2

• ½ head of Radicchio Castelfranco, roughly torn into manageable pieces
• ¼ red onion, very thinly sliced
• 4 – 5 kumquats, thinly sliced
• A handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Seeds from a quarter of a pomegranate
• A good* drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
• Salt and black pepper

*If you are downsizing, don’t be too enthusiastic when you are drizzling the olive oil.

Put it all in a largish bowl and mix well.

Spiced red cabbage slaw with lemon and pomegranate

I love red cabbage slaws and I particularly like the hints of cumin and coriander in this one – and the way the lime juice, honey, and chilli combine.

I like the cabbage shredded finely – with a mandolin or food-processor – but it’s also very good cut by hand and more chunky. Serve it with some Greek yogurt

Serves 4

• Half a red cabbage
• 2 carrots
• ¼ red onion  
• ½ lemon or 2 lemon kumquats
• Pomegranate seeds
• Zest and juice of a lime
• 2 teaspoons of toasted sesame oil
• A pinch of crushed cumin and coriander seeds
• 1 chilli, finely sliced
• 2 teaspoons honey
• Salt and pepper

1. Finely slice the cabbage and red onion.
2. Peel and grate the carrots.
3. Deseed half a pomegranate.
4. Chop up the lemon or kumquats.
5. Crush the spices.
6. Put it all in a big bowl (plenty of room for mixing).
7. Add the honey, sesame oil, lime zest and juice, and plenty of salt and pepper, and mix really well with your hands.
8. Finely slice the chilli, and mix in with a spoon.
9. Adjust the seasoning until it tastes very good.

Radicchio with strawberries, ricotta, and black olives  

Radicchio makes for excellent salads – gorgeous colour, robust enough that it doesn’t collapse into a wimpy heap if you add heavier ingredients, and just enough bitterness to be interesting, without making your eyes water. There are many salads to make with it, but I love this one.I have an absolute passion for ricotta – its creamy softness, and flavour so delicate it is hardly there – and it combines fabulously with the sweetness of the strawberries and bitterness of the radicchio..

Serves 2 – 3

• 1 head of radicchio
• 40g ricotta
• 10 black olives
• A large handful of strawberries
• Small salad onion,
• Lemon zest
• 2 teaspoon of olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Teaspoon of honey – optional
• Salt and pepper

1. Roughly chop or break up the radicchio – so you have a good, but not unwieldy expanse of leaf.
2. Very finely slice the onion.  
3. Hull and quarter the strawberries – unless they are very large, in which case chop them smaller.  
4. Roughly slice the black olives into rings.  
5. Put it all in a bowl and grate the lemon zest over it.
6. Add the olive oil, honey, balsamic vinegar, and salt and mix really well.
7. Scatter small pieces of ricotta over it.  

Diva NotesStrawberriesStrawberries must be sweet or there is absolutely no point in eating them. Very often the ones for sale are not. There are plenty of sweet and delicious varieties, so could somebody please explain why these are not mandatory? And why governments all over the world sit back and do nothing?Black OlivesI either use the mild ones you get in tins – which I slice into chunky rounds – or the bitter squidgy ones, which I leave whole.Leftover RadicchioRadicchio looks terrible the next day – as if it’s had far too much to drink and has a massive hangover – but it’s actually really delicious. So don’t throw away any left over; eat it for lunch.  Ricotta’s LCD CredentialsAs it is fairly low fat, and contains a lot of moisture, you can eat 40g for the same calories as 15g of Parmesan.

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